new light cruiser needed

Kytheros wrote:A single broadside arrangement has no real benefit, and has several real downsides.

Agreed. I don't think they'd start to care for that absence of flexibility and the way that battle damage would skew capabilities so badly. Degrading gracefully under system failure is a goal; asymmetric broadsides would kick that in the head.

If they do chase armaments only like a Roland, it'll likely be an 8 tube cluster, instead of a 6 tube cluster.

I doubt they'd want the chase armament configuration. They're not happy with how it will suffer damage either, and they are particularly unhappy about serving them with deep magazines, a consideration that they take very seriously for a light cruiser.

Staggered tubes are one way to get the Mk 16 on a ship less wide than a Saganami-C, and if I had to bet on any of these options, I'd go with that. But the ammunition arrangements and internal layout may be tricky, issues that I don't think they'd eagerly accept for a workhorse on long cruises with minimal maintenance and external logistic support.

So my bet is something about the same size as a Saganami-C with a similar weapons arrangement. But as a light cruiser, it can afford fewer tubes and less armor. They may even opt for a single fusion plant, though I'd still put better money on two of them, but definitely not three. The generous volume freed up by fewer tubes and less armor can mean magazines that carry more rounds of fire with the same volume; more provision for stores; excess life support for emergencies, Marine/Army complements, prize crews, more trainees, etc.; and deeper recon drone capacity with identical small craft capacity.

Building it on the same size hull as the heavy cruiser (perhaps the light/heavy distinction could be changed) would mean being able to share the same slips and a lot of overlap in parts, which will be very handy for construction, training, and maintenance. And with fewer weapons, it's likely to be able to do the light cruiser jobs with less money spent to build it and fewer people to crew it. It won't have the speed of a smaller hyper-capable ship, but when a smaller hyper-capable ship is going to have an awkward time with DDM usage or long-range patrol duty (or both), when LAC's are doing the in-system small warship job so well, and when recon drones and MDM's/DDM's are much zippier than any ship and doing their work so far out, that's perfectly acceptable.

Even though RFC/MWW (who of course has the final word) has talked about the "next" CL class, if I were the Admiral SoAndSo in charge of BuShips, I'd say why? Instead I'd propose a modified Sag-C (which for brevity sake I am going to call the -CM) that's a -C with a smaller missile & modified drone loadout] where the -CM is highly optimized for the types of operations that require Marines.

Here's my logic, just using ship weights as a guide: Two Sag-C's, about 485x2 Ktons=970. One Sag-CM plus 3 Rolands (485 + 3x185 = 1040 K-tons, but in another post I read that they were working on three of the DD's in the same size building slip). If the new "CL" has about a 300 K-Ton then you can build 3.

Arguments for: (#1) the 4 vs 3 build ratio gets you more tactical flexibility with currently limited yard space, at least until very little war fighting/Laccoon style capabilities are needed. (#2) build priorities can be easily rearranged based on mission needs: all of the tactical, compensator, etc. are state of the art for the CA and for say 60% of the ship, even the tubes and PDLC's, the last 40% being built for warfighting (missiles) or presence/piracy missions (Marines). (#3) The CL is supposed to be "unarmored"; if I were a ship captain, I'd prefer more of my crew's protoplasmic bits be surrounded by armor. If I'm on one of the DD's with a Sag-CM nearby, you get warfighting countermissile coverage from the -CM and the integrated defenses of all 4 ships to protects theDD protoplasmic bits better, and my crew member's don't have to double as Marines. (#4) In a salvo'd throw-weight-for-weight battle, using the Mark-16G, two stacked salvos from the DD's tied to two stacked salvos from the -CM ought to mission kill ANY ship in space.

In theory the down side would be "presence missions in 3 systems vs. two", but I'd argue that for the next couple
T-Decades, that's offset by the outright need for either warfighting OR -CM missions requiring Marines and the CA-.

Thoughts?

stupid question:

why can't the new CL be the same width as a Sag C?

it won't carry the same amount of weps/armour etc and will obviously be shorter but why can't the basic width of the ship be the same?

Dauntless wrote:stupid question:

why can't the new CL be the same width as a Sag C?

it won't carry the same amount of weps/armour etc and will obviously be shorter but why can't the basic width of the ship be the same?

There are several bits of canon that state the compensator fields are constrained by dimensional proportions. It may be that making the CL too squat/stocky would mess up the compensators...

fester wrote:
There are several bits of canon that state the compensator fields are constrained by dimensional proportions. It may be that making the CL too squat/stocky would mess up the compensators...

ok,. i'd missed that.

thanks

fester wrote:

Dauntless wrote:stupid question:

why can't the new CL be the same width as a Sag C?

it won't carry the same amount of weps/armour etc and will obviously be shorter but why can't the basic width of the ship be the same?

There are several bits of canon that state the compensator fields are constrained by dimensional proportions. It may be that making the CL too squat/stocky would mess up the compensators...

It may be that they could make it somewhat shorter and somewhat flatter - give in the other two dimensions, without singling out either of them for too much reduction - without suffering compensator inefficiencies. Then again, the Saganami-C may be pushing that already; I've not compared it to older designs of similar tonnage to see if it's unusually wider relative to the other two dimensions.

SharkHunter wrote:Even though RFC/MWW (who of course has the final word) has talked about the "next" CL class, if I were the Admiral SoAndSo in charge of BuShips, I'd say why? Instead I'd propose a modified Sag-C (which for brevity sake I am going to call the -CM) that's a -C with a smaller missile & modified drone loadout] where the -CM is highly optimized for the types of operations that require Marines.

Here's my logic, just using ship weights as a guide: Two Sag-C's, about 485x2 Ktons=970. One Sag-CM plus 3 Rolands (485 + 3x185 = 1040 K-tons, but in another post I read that they were working on three of the DD's in the same size building slip). If the new "CL" has about a 300 K-Ton then you can build 3.

Arguments for: (#1) the 4 vs 3 build ratio gets you more tactical flexibility with currently limited yard space, at least until very little war fighting/Laccoon style capabilities are needed. (#2) build priorities can be easily rearranged based on mission needs: all of the tactical, compensator, etc. are state of the art for the CA and for say 60% of the ship, even the tubes and PDLC's, the last 40% being built for warfighting (missiles) or presence/piracy missions (Marines). (#3) The CL is supposed to be "unarmored"; if I were a ship captain, I'd prefer more of my crew's protoplasmic bits be surrounded by armor. If I'm on one of the DD's with a Sag-CM nearby, you get warfighting countermissile coverage from the -CM and the integrated defenses of all 4 ships to protects theDD protoplasmic bits better, and my crew member's don't have to double as Marines. (#4) In a salvo'd throw-weight-for-weight battle, using the Mark-16G, two stacked salvos from the DD's tied to two stacked salvos from the -CM ought to mission kill ANY ship in space.

In theory the down side would be "presence missions in 3 systems vs. two", but I'd argue that for the next couple
T-Decades, that's offset by the outright need for either warfighting OR -CM missions requiring Marines and the CA-.

Thoughts?

I think the real marine specialist is the Kamerling and it likely to remain so.

I wouldn't object to a cruiser with a bit more provision for marines than the Saganami-C - my own notion for a "light" cruiser goes right there, in fact. But getting the most out of personnel is likely to mean either keeping/restoring Marines to essential shipboard duties; crosstraining naval crew and officers to do Marine duty as needed (let a thousand Abigails bloom!); sending units with larger marine complements out for particular missions as needed rather than having some aboard every ship, needed at the moment or not; and/or rely harder on automation as a force multiplier there too.

I'd love lots of armor to protect my crew and ship from damage. I'd love to bring a SD(P) to every occasion as the ultimate expression of that desire. But that's not happening - resources are not infinite, whatever crabbing about the economic model some people will do. For a unit not intended to do energy-range fighting and intended for screening, scouting, patrols, anti-piracy, commerce raiding, and commerce protection, armor can be suppressed and some things need to be. That and number of anti-shipping weapons are excellent candidates.

Dauntless wrote:stupid question:

why can't the new CL be the same width as a Sag C?

it won't carry the same amount of weps/armour etc and will obviously be shorter but why can't the basic width of the ship be the same?

fester wrote:There are several bits of canon that state the compensator fields are constrained by dimensional proportions. It may be that making the CL too squat/stocky would mess up the compensators...

JeffEngel wrote:It may be that they could make it somewhat shorter and somewhat flatter - give in the other two dimensions, without singling out either of them for too much reduction - without suffering compensator inefficiencies. Then again, the Saganami-C may be pushing that already; I've not compared it to older designs of similar tonnage to see if it's unusually wider relative to the other two dimensions.

Even if it is possible, you end up with a CL that is no faster than the Sag-C. While not a problem now, when you are opposing someone with the same compensator tech, you are left with a small ship which cannot run away from ships twice it's size - which is not a good thing.

Theemile wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:It may be that they could make it somewhat shorter and somewhat flatter - give in the other two dimensions, without singling out either of them for too much reduction - without suffering compensator inefficiencies. Then again, the Saganami-C may be pushing that already; I've not compared it to older designs of similar tonnage to see if it's unusually wider relative to the other two dimensions.

Even if it is possible, you end up with a CL that is no faster than the Sag-C. While not a problem now, when you are opposing someone with the same compensator tech, you are left with a small ship which cannot run away from ships twice it's size - which is not a good thing.

If you've got the same compensator tech and the same efficiency using it, the ship half the size of the other will have some acceleration advantage. If it's the same size as a Saganami-C, and assuming identical compensator effectiveness, it will have the same acceleration. If it's smaller and doesn't suffer some compensator inefficiency by comparison - if you can shrink from the Saganami-C along a combination of the other two dimensions without suffering that - then smaller will still mean better acceleration. If you can't manage that, then it's not a workable notion - agreed, and never disputed.

A ship that's not optimized strictly for combat unable to outrun one of the same size that is is an inevitable consequence of building anything not optimized strictly for combat or speed. Fleets have lived with that and will continue to.

JeffEngel wrote:If you've got the same compensator tech and the same efficiency using it, the ship half the size of the other will have some acceleration advantage. If it's the same size as a Saganami-C, and assuming identical compensator effectiveness, it will have the same acceleration. If it's smaller and doesn't suffer some compensator inefficiency by comparison - if you can shrink from the Saganami-C along a combination of the other two dimensions without suffering that - then smaller will still mean better acceleration. If you can't manage that, then it's not a workable notion - agreed, and never disputed.

The problem is that David has indicated that you can't without suffering inefficiency.